Forty-Two Years Ago

I'm having a reflective day today.

A page fell out of my scrap book this morning and reminded me that April, 1965, was when I won second prize in the junior high school science fair for my home-built computer. It was a five-bit binary adder. It only won second prize because the high school science and math teachers doing the judging really didn't see the value in an arithmetic that had only a 1 and a 0.

Over the last forty-odd years, I've changed base technology about every five years, I've been through at least 12 major platform changes, eight careers, and about twenty two computer languages. When I first got on the internet, there were only 10million computers and people were wondering what it would be like when it broke 20million. It was all text based and "command line" communications.

And I'm looking back at all this stuff today and thinking "I probably shouldn't be so curmudgeonly about those who've only been at it a few years."

So, consider this my apology to those who find my attitude too brusque, abrasive, or otherwise offensive. I've been doing it too long and I forget sometimes.

I'm still gonna "call 'em like I see 'em" and I see 'em very differently than most people in the field.

But I'll try to be more polite about it when I tell you how wrong you are. :)

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Comment by Durff on April 6, 2007 at 7:22pm: The binary code was obviously lost on those faculty members of long ago. Don't ever mince words with me - I am wrong several times a day. I have many students who tell me - in a Bronx Jewish Grandmother's accent (I taught them that, though I am neither Jewish nor a grandmother).

Comment by Dave Ehrhart on April 7, 2007 at 3:13am: You know, sometimes you just need to say what really needs to be said without mincing the words. In fact, someone with a lot of experience in any field has more to offer than many people realize. Those of us who have been around a while tend to see the whole forest, the tree roots, the bark, the leaves, and not just a tree or two. As a rather elderly technology integrator I think have a lot to offer to our newer teachers, and I am enthusiastic about all of this. It would be a rather boring world if we were all the Mr. Rogers type; we need a few Simon Cowells in every field.